Turkey’s Europe minister

Mevlüt Çavusoglu has been appointed Turkey’s Europe minister in a government reshuffle on 25 December triggered by the resignation of three ministers over a corruption investigation.

As Europe minister, Çavusoglu will also act as Turkey’s chief negotiator in membership talks with the EU, which were revived in November after a freeze of more than three years. An economist with degrees from American and British universities, Çavusoglu replaces Egemen Bagis¸, whose bluntness had caused repeated offense with EU interlocutors. Çavusoglu, a founding member of the mildly Islamist AK Party of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has been deputy chairman of the AK Party in charge of foreign relations since last January. In 2010-12, he served as president of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe in Strasbourg.